CHAPTER XXXI
HANDS WITHOUT LEGS: LEGS WITHOUT HANDS
"Hands without legs, legs without hands," is the name applied to a new principle in equitation enunciated by Baucher only a few years before his death. It resulted in a schism among horsemen, and the new ideas were opposed by many masters and esquires.
I have myself experimented with the new methods upon horses of very different qualities. My own conclusion is that the system is practicable only for a very able horseman training an animal of very superior endowments, both physical and mental. I do not regard the scheme as workable for any rider dealing with a horse of inferior conformation, or for an inexperienced rider dealing with any sort of horse.
For it must be evident that, with a horse of superior conformation, the state of equilibrium is both more easily obtained and more easily kept by the ordinary principles of the reasoned and the scientific equitation, hands and legs being used together for the different movements, than with an inferior animal. Moreover, the less perfectly conformed the animal is, the more difficult is it to maintain the state of equilibrium, even with the aid of hands and legs together.
